Florida is experimenting with a fast-paced, uptempo offense. It is partially as a result of seeing Kevin Wilson’s Oklahoma offense in the national title game and partially as a result of seeing Kevin Wilson’s Northwestern offense in 2001.

I took a look at pace earlier this offseason, and I projected that the Gators would have scored about 55 a game last year if they played at Oklahoma’s pace. Urban Meyer may or may not have seen a similar figure from his stats guys, but he seems most interested in the way that an uptempo offense disrupts defenses.

The other big difference is that Tim Tebow will be taking some snaps under center. Tebow says it’s happening because it’s the way Scot Loeffler is influencing the offense, while Meyer says it’s happening to get Tebow more comfortable with it since he’ll have to do that in the NFL. It’s not that one is wrong and one is right, since the offense has always been a team effort under Meyer.

Many have pointed out that packages with the quarterback under center existed in Meyer’s offense in 2005 and 2006 when Chris Leak was running the show. That is true, and the I-formation is also coming back if they can find a fullback.

The question on everyone’s mind comes down to this: who will replace Percy Harvin? Meyer said around national signing day that he sees incoming freshman Andre Debose in that role. So far, that appears likely because no one has stepped up to take control of that role so far. Deonte Thompson, Chris Rainey, and Jeff Demps are the other candidates for that position.

Carl Moore was the invisible man for a lot of last season, which was odd for someone touted as a five-star guy from junior college. He’s been looking a lot better this year, now that

David Nelson and Aaron Hernandez have also looked good catching passes. Justin Williams has been practicing with the first team offense along with Thompson and Nelson. Riley Cooper is playing baseball and is not participating in spring football practice.

Personally, I’m thinking that the 2008 receiving corps is not going to be the best analogue for the 2009 corps in terms of fitting guys into roles. To me right now, 2006 seems like a better comparison given the personnel and likely ball distribution. Having Nelson as Dallas Baker, Thompson as Bubba Caldwell, Debose as Harvin, Moore as Jemaille Cornelius and so on feels a little more right. We’ll see.

Running Backs and Offensive Line

With Rainey rehabbing from surgery and Demps running track, Emmanuel Moody is the only scholarship running back at practice. Fortunately, he’s been playing very well so far though the defense has been stuffing him in goal line scenarios.

A probable cause for that is the fact that the offensive line has not been great. Partially that is because both Pouncey brothers are sidelined with injury right now, and the only other returning starter (Carl Johnson) is at a new position.

The younger guys who haven’t played much haven’t stepped up a whole lot. Things will get better when the Pounceys come back, but they alone won’t solve all the problems. It took half the season for last year’s line to gel, but hopefully this year’s crew will work themselves out a little sooner.

Defense

The defense has been dominating so far, but Meyer says that’s “usually” the case at this early stage of spring practice. It makes sense considering the offense is working through a lot of issues with new schemes and personnel while the defense is enjoying complete continuity.

Things are great at defensive end. They are so good and so deep that redshirt freshman Earl Okine has been moved to the inside.

With Torrey Davis kicked off the team and John Brown deciding to transfer, depth is again an issue at defensive tackle. Even the vaunted 2006 line needed Ray McDonald to move from the outside to the inside for depth.

As it turns out, things at tackle have been fine so far. Jaye Howard is bigger than ever and looking like a solid backup to starters Lawrence Marsh and Terron Sanders. Okine has been adjusting well so far. Omar Hunter, the guy Meyer called the Tim Tebow of the 2008 recruiting class, is finally in shape, healthy, and contributing.

Linebackers and Secondary

Brandon Spikes is happy to be back, and the Gators are happy to have him. He will be the unquestioned leader of what should be one of the top defenses in the country. This position is one of the best and deepest on the team, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Spikes, Stamper, and Jones are the first teamers right now, while Doe, Lorenzo Edwards, and Lerentree McCray are the second teamers.

Not much has been reported about the corners, other than that Janoris Jenkins has been taking some reps as a punt returner thanks to Brandon James being out. Freshman Adrian Bushell intercepted Tebow as well, and that’s about it.

I would expect that the position will be just fine with Joe Haden and Jenkins locking things down as the starters. The depth at secondary is something any other team in the country would be envious of.

“In response to the rumors circulating about my interest in other jobs, I wanted to address this as quickly as possible. I am committed to the University of Florida and look forward to continuing to build our program here.”

When I saw a report that Jeremy Foley was in his office in Gainesville all Friday, I knew Donovan was staying put. When Foley doesn’t have a sense of urgency, there’s nothing to be anxious about. As it turns out, Kentucky’s A.D. Mitch Barnhart hasn’t even asked permission to speak to Donovan.

I know the rumors won’t end here, so I’ll just try to ignore them. Billy Donovan is the Florida head coach, and he will be for quite some time. That’s all anyone needs to know.

Right now, it looks like Billy Gillispie is on his way out the door at Kentucky. I’d imagine that nothing causes folks to hit the panic button in Lexington quite like missing the NCAA tournament does.

With another coach out at UK, you know what that means: speculation about Billy Donovan going up there to take the head coaching job. Pat Dooley doesn’t believe it will happen, Kevin Brockway makes some good points in the negative, and Alligator Army reminds us all that the reason Billy D came back from the Orlando Magic was that he loved UF.

One of the other big arguments against Donovan leaving is that he already knows what the UK fanbase is like. After two down years in Gainesville, folks are restless but behind him 100%. After two down years in Kentucky, the Wildcats are ready to run Gillispie out of town.

Plus, I can remember it now: “We got the right Billy, and you didn’t.” That was the refrain I heard from ‘Cats fans after Gillispie signed on two years ago. Now what’s the verdict on that one?

I understand that Florida basketball will always be in the shadow of Florida football, whereas the opposite is true at Kentucky. If anyone knows that it’s Donovan, considering he’s spent time at both places. However, there’s something to be said for not having that kind of pressure and being able to survive a couple of rebuilding years.

The top reason I don’t see Donovan leaving is timing.

Why now? Why not two years ago? He’s admitted that one reason why he wanted to try the NBA two years ago was that he recognized that it was going to be a multi-year project getting UF hoops back to full strength.

It appears that with the young core of players returning along with the coming of guys like Georgetown transfer Vernon Macklin and all-everything recruit Kenny Boynton, that project is nearing completion. Why bail on Florida at this point to do another rebuilding project at Kentucky?

Now would be a terrible time to go take that job. If he truly did want to go there someday, it would make more sense for him to make a run with the guys he’s got now in Gainesville and wait for Lexington to chew up and spit out whoever comes in next.

I can’t find any reasonable explanation as to why Billy Donovan would choose to leave Florida for Kentucky. Never is a long time, and he may decide one day that he’s done all he can in Gainesville and that he wants a new challenge.

Over at Team Speed Kills, SBNation’s SEC blog, I am going to be doing reviews of unintentionally funny commercials from within the conference. The first one is up, and it’s on Tommy Tuberville’s absurd Golden Flake spot. Check it out.

I don’t say that lightly, especially because of how big a part of my childhood he was. My first time at the Swamp was the ’89 Florida-Kentucky game when I was four. I’ve been to at least one game there every year since.

On fall Sundays while I was growing up, my family had a custom of eating lunch while watching the Steve Spurrier Show with lunch after church. It was jarring to go from that to Ron Zook’s show, and it never did quite feel right.

I inherited a lot of my attitudes about football from that Steve Spurrier: it’s okay to throw for the endzone late in a blowout if it’s the backup doing it, there’s a certain elegance about getting receivers wide open over and over, he who’s on top gets to talk, etc.

When I saw that he is going to implement a Wildcat formation, I realized that the Spurrier I once knew is gone. I should have known this moment was coming given the state of the South Carolina offense the past couple years, but I figured it was what would happen if he got stuck with only quarterbacks at Noah Brindise-level and below.

I simply cannot fathom the Florida-era Spurrier ever deciding to run many plays without a quarterback on the field. He was a quarterback, loved to teach quarterbacks, and acted like a quarterback from the sideline as he still could read defenses better than most collegiate signal callers. That Spurrier would never have considered the Wildcat because he could get just as many yards on a fade route.

What started in Washington has completed in South Carolina. I am with those who think he thought he could walk into Columbia and win almost as quickly as he did at Florida. It worked before, why can’t it work now?

For one thing, the situations are completely different. Bear Bryant famously called Florida a sleeping giant of a program. Charley Pell and Galen Hall built it up to the point where it could take off, and they brought on the same probation that other big time programs had in the ‘80s while doing it. The cupboards were stocked, and Spurrier was the right guy in the right place at the right time for UF.

The talent level at South Carolina in 2005 was not comparable to that of Florida in 1990. It was comparable to that of Florida in 2005 though, and the Gamecocks’ win that year (in a game that Spurrier outcoached Urban Meyer, no less) showed it.

Three seasons later, the gap between Spurrier’s old program and his current one seems like it could scarcely be wider. Florida has added two more SEC and national titles, and it handed him his worst defeat ever last season to the tune of 56-6. Whatever he’s doing has caused him to fall behind the conference leaders, the opposite direction he wants to go.

Now to help catch up, Spurrier, a guy with six SEC titles, is essentially taking a page out of the playbook of Houston Nutt, a guy with no SEC titles. I can tell you that I would never have expected to see that happen when he took the job four years ago.

I have no doubt that his competitive fire is still burning; I doubt anything will ever extinguish that. The witticisms will still come, as they have periodically through his time in Columbia.

The trend-setting Spurrier though is gone, replaced by a more pragmatic and, yes, trend-following Spurrier. It’s time for all of us to stop expecting to see anything different.

This year’s Terelle Pryor, at least in terms of length of recruitment, has chose to cast his lot with Al Davis’ BFF up in Knoxville. Is it a good or bad thing for Tennessee? Depends on whose colors you wear.

I used some aspects of that in order to make some projections about the tournament. It was based on historic trends, patterns, and a three-year moving average. As it turned out, they were pretty good.

I came up with 16 to 18 teams from the ’07 second round making the ’08 second round, and 17 ended up doing it.

I projected nine teams from the ’07 second round making the ’08 Sweet 16, and 10 did. I projected that from four to six teams (and most likely six) from the ’07 Sweet 16 would make it that far in ’08, and five did.

It didn’t work so well when it came to the Elite Eight, since I had fewer than three Elite Eight teams from ’07 making it back in ’08, and four teams did. In my defense, the back-to-back years of zero returners in ’05 and ’06 messed up the moving average analysis, and it was the first time that the number of repeat Elite Eight teams increased after having been three or more the previous season.

Anyway, I decided to do the same thing again this year. I am also publishing the projections this time just in case it turns out to be good again. I also applied the same analysis to seed in the first round, so we’ll see how this goes.

It could be that this is snake oil and I got lucky last year, or it could be really close again. We’ll have to see. Anyway, here’s what I got for this year:

15 teams from the ’08 second round in the ’09 second round

From seven to nine (likely eight) teams from the ’08 second round in the ’09 Sweet 16

Five to seven (likely six or seven) teams from the ’08 Sweet 16 in the ’09 Sweet 16

Between one and three (likely one) teams from the ’08 Elite Eight in the ’09 Elite Eight

One team from the ’08 Elite Eight in the ’09 Final Four

Either five or six (likely six) upsets in the ’09 first round

If there are five first round upsets, the second round will have four ones, four twos, four threes, three fours, three fives, three sixes, two sevens, one eight, three nines, two tens, zero elevens, three twelves, one thirteen, and zero each of fourteens, fifteens, and sixteens.

If there are six first round upsets, the second round will have the same as above only with one five, four sixes, three twelves, and zero elevens.

As the post title indicates, I have a feeling that this is probably a fool’s errand. However, I’m hoping when the brackets come out that the combination of the returners and seeds will put together a pretty accurate projection of the field. I think it’s probably more likely that it will be impossible to meet all of the above conditions.

After all, if there’s one thing that I know about the tournament, it changes everything up the moment you think you have it figured out.